The center piece of the Day is still eatin’ pig. That’s the best. As the Hog Day site describes:

When day breaks on Saturday, Hog Day is already bustling with activity. While vendors, who sell everything from video games to handpainted stained glass, set up in the General Merchandise, Food, and Craft areas, you hear a persistent “thunk, thunk, thunk” and you know the pig is ready. The cooking teams chop all their cooked pig and sauce a portion for the Barbecue Tasting Judges. In 2005, the judges will include Jonathan Childress and Damon Lapas of Chapel Hill’s That BBQ Joint. Led by Chief Judge David Hunt, the judges will compare notes and make their final decisions as to the top 5 barbecue cooking teams. They are to be saluted for tasting 36 different barbecues at 8:30 am!

The rest is shuttled to the main tent, where it’s made into sandwiches and pounds of the freshest barbecue in the state. Cash prizes and trophies are awarded for best barbecue.

The dean, Bryan LeBeau, also said he has withdrawn from consideration to be executive vice president at DePaul University, a job for which he was a finalist, in the wake of news reports about the similarities.

But this is not tragic. Sadly, it is pathetic.

To quote Cornel West (or to quote LeBeau as he quotes West without acknowledgement):

We ought not to confuse the tragic with the pathetic. The tragic is about the exploration of human possibilities for freedom.